biodiversity condenser 22/23
module convener:
oliver froome-lewis
studio groups:
kyveli anastasiadi and michelle tomlinson, louise humphreys, mike kane, vseva kondratiev-popov, oliver froome-lewis
technical team:
sabine hogenhout, camille chevrier, peter corbett, anna hinton,
reviews:
henry scutt, stephen gage
AA3DS6
“We are in crisis. We cannot afford to carry on like this. It is possible to act on climate and costs in a way that is fair and supports everyone. But our political system is too out of date and out of touch to see beyond the next election cycle and do what needs to be done.”
Climate Activists, Damien Gayle, The Guardian, Fri 2nd September 2022
“Biodiversity net gain delivers measurable improvements for biodiversity by creating or enhancing habitats in association with development. Biodiversity net gain can be achieved on-site, off-site or through a combination of on-site and off-site measures.“
Local Government Association, Planning Advisory Service, Accessed December 2022: www.local.gov.uk
While reporters, commentators and opinion formers around the world continue, quite correctly, to emphasise the inadequacy of responses to our climate crisis, a quiet and unassumingly named, ‘BNG Programme’, change to UK legislation next autumn promises to bring fundamental changes to design priorities for new architecture. This legislation will require the environmental cost of proposals for new buildings to be balanced by proposals for environmental improvements. We explored Purley On Thames and Sulham to the west of Reading, north of Theale where we completed our marshland walk. The territory of the project borders the edge of Reading to the east and ancient fields and woodland to the west.
The project draws on a live BNG initiative that is taking place in the area and was introduced by Henry Scutt of The Sulham Estate. Henry followed the project throughout offering an intriguing array of real–world–wisdom. Broadly the project included the distribution of purely natural landscape elements including a wetland zone, railway screen, pastures for breeding waders and skylark and woodland, a productive landscape of grower co-operatives, allotments, grazing, hay cuts, in-field trees, scrub and broad leaf woodland – that will maximise edge habitats and the artificial landscape of a cricket pitch. Adjoining these students created an environmentally innovative building incorporating defined internal and external spaces for an outlet for produce, an educational / community space, and a food outlet, students created other site specific proposals that they could support with a full argument. These various elements were linked by a network of new public pathways and access tracks.
These possibilities and requirements were alongside the possibilities presented by regarding landscape as urbanism (Waldheim), small scale design workshops in Japan that have considered landscape, seasons and festivals (Ehashira) and the current debate around Reinventing the Rural (Sutherland).
